KUALA LUMPUR – Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh believes the winning recipe that gave the national bowling squad four gold medals at the 26th Asian Tenpin Bowling Championships (ATBC) in Hong Kong can be replicated for other athletes in different sports.
The national contingent brought home four golds, five silver, and three bronze medals from the championship, with Muhammad Rafiq bagging four gold medals and two silvers.
Hannah said she is happy with the team’s performance and said she has instructed the ministry to welcome the athletes back home.
“We will meet with the athletes soon to congratulate them. Surely the entire country is proud of all of them.
“I feel that we need to look at the recipe for their victory and see how we can repeat this for other athletes. We need to have more engagement with the athletes,” she said when met with reporters at the National Sports Council today.
The Segambut MP also wished that the next generation of young athletes choose to look up to sports idols.
“When they don’t have an idol in sports, then they won’t know much about the sports as they lack a good example.
“If youngsters are just engrossed in their phone and not watch sports, they won’t know even know if our athletes bring home an Olympic gold medal.
“They won’t celebrate it, and that is the culture that I want to change,” she added.
Hannah also wished the national hockey team good luck, as the Speedy Tigers made it out of the group stages after winning against New Zealand 3-2 to book a spot in the cross-over match.
Meanwhile, national tenpin bowling icon Shalin Zulkifli said it was no surprise that Rafiq was victorious at the championship as he was the country’s No. 1 bowler.
“It is not surprising that he won, but I am also happy to see the men’s team do well at ATBC.
“It was a good performance compared to last year’s results at the International Bowling Federation (IBF) World Cup in Australia.
“We know that the men’s team is good, but they could never get a breakthrough to win gold, they should have already won it a while back, but they stepped up this time which is great.
At the IBF World Cup, Malaysia’s men’s team was eliminated in the first round after losing to the Philippines. – The Vibes, January 19, 2023.
